Francis J. Doyle III, Dean, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is leading a team of researchers developing a system that connects a diabetic patient’s artificial pancreas to their smart phone.

The system combines the processes into a closed-loop with the glucose monitor and pump placed under a patient’s skin, which communicates wirelessly with an app on a smartphone. Enabled with a model-predictive control algorithm, the system adjusts glucose levels automatically, maintaining a healthy range.

A clinical trial was successful in controlling the glucose levels of 30 patients with Type 1 diabetes.

“This is by far the longest duration trial we have conducted, and it is a testament to the robustness of the algorithm that our key performance indices were maintained from our earlier, shorter trials,” Doyle said.